The Horse Race: Still Waiting for the Ryan Bounce

Having spent yesterday’s column castigating conservative thinkers, I’m going to start today by quoting one of them approvingly. Appearing on Fox News last night, Charles Krauthammer had this to say about Todd Akin and his “legitimate rape” gaffe: “It isn’t only that it was offensive and toxic. It was unbelievably stupid. There is enough stupidity in Congress. We don’t need to add to it—in this large amount. The guy has to leave.”

Enough about Akin, who still appears intent on taking the advice of his opponent, Claire McCaskill, to stay in the race. On to the other big story of the last few days, or, rather, the big non-story: the “Ryan bounce.” A week and a half after Mitt Romney surprised almost everybody and picked the Janesville hunk (well, my wife thinks he’s handsome, at least by Washington standards), it’s difficult to see any significant change in the race. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, which was released late Tuesday, shows Obama retaining a four-point lead over Romney: forty-eight per cent to forty-four per cent. The Gallup tracking polls show the choice of a running mate giving Romney a bit of a lift, but as Frank Newport, the editor-in-chief of Gallup, pointed out a few days ago, the bounce is smaller than in some previous elections, such as 1996 and 2000. And with the Democrats focussing relentlessly on Ryan’s controversial plans to reform Medicare, the downside of his selection is also becoming apparent.

Still, it’s too early to reach any definitive judgements. With the Republican Convention coming up next week, and the summer holidays drawing to a close, things could change. Ryan is attracting big crowds, the conservative editorial writers are enthused, and Romney seems energized by the presence of his young running mate. All things considered, the folks in Beantown will be mildly encouraged. But that has more to do with how bad things had gotten before Romney chose Ryan than with any genuine signs of a turnaround.

I remarked at the time that the entire point of Romney’s selection of Ryan was to shake things up. With the campaign narrative revolving around his record rather than Obama’s, the national and regional polls turning against him, and some people on his own side sniping about his campaign, Romney took a calculated gamble. In overlooking Rob Portman, Marco Rubio, and others, he sacrificed the opportunity to nail down a single crucial state, such as Ohio or Florida, in favor of recasting the entire campaign along the lines of the 2010 mid-terms: as a referendum on Obama and big government.

Given the dire circumstances he was facing, Romney’s gamble was a logical one. Its success depended on setting off a chain reaction in which Ryan’s presence fired up the G.O.P. base, switched the focus of the campaign back to the economy, and started to move the polls in his direction. So far, it has succeeded in the first aim and backfired on the second. The polling question remains an open one.

That’s partly because there isn’t very much new data to analyze. The new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll is the first one of the regular national surveys to appear since Ryan’s selection. Obama’s four-point lead is down two points from last month, when he led by forty-nine per cent to forty-three per cent. Statistically speaking, that isn’t a significant change, but it does go in the direction Romney needs. However, other details of the poll will be less welcome to him. Asked whether the choice of Ryan would affect their vote, just twenty-two per cent of respondents said it made them more likely to vote for Romney, and twenty-three per cent said it made them less likely to vote for him. Supporting the theory that Vice-Presidential candidates don’t matter very much, fifty-four per cent of respondents said Ryan’s presence on the ticket wouldn’t affect how they voted.

The two tracking polls, from Gallup and Rasmussen, have consistently shown a close race. That remains true. In the week leading up to the Ryan announcement, August 5th to 11th, Gallup had the race tied at forty-six per cent for each candidate. In the most recent period, August 14th to 20th, Romney has been leading Obama by two points: forty-seven per cent to forty-five per cent. That’s the good news for Romney. A two-point swing isn’t much—it’s well within the poll’s margin of error—but in a tight race it could prove crucial. The bad news for Romney is that Rasmussen, a polling organization that is sometimes criticized for producing numbers favorable to the G.O.P., has shown little evidence of a Romney surge, or even a blip. For much of the past two months, Rasmussen’s tracker has shown the Republican candidate leading by a point or two, and that hasn’t changed at all. In today’s update, Romney leads by forty-five per cent to forty-four per cent—a statistical tie.

Republicans would also point to a couple of state-level polls that have shown a bit of movement in Romney’s direction. Wisconsin certainly appears to be tightening up: a PPP poll out today shows him leading Obama by one point. But other polls of battleground states are mixed. A series of polls last week from Purple Strategies showed Romney gaining ground in Ohio and Virginia, but Obama gaining in Colorado and Florida. Since Romney almost certainly can’t win without carrying the Sunshine State, that’s hardly encouraging. And the Purple Strategies poll also confirmed that Ryan’s views on Medicare are a potential disaster for Romney. Asked which of the two Presidential tickets was more likely to protect Medicare, respondents in marginal states choose Obama-Biden by an eight-point margin.

With Tampa just days away, though, Republican supporters and pundits are understandably eager to look on the bright side. If the election were restricted to the staff of the National Review or the Weekly Standard, or the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, the selection of Ryan would have sealed it for the Mittster. In a Journal op-ed this morning, Fred Barnes wrote, “Once Mr. Ryan entered the race, everything changed: the issues, the substance of the candidates’ speeches, perceptions of Mr. Romney and President Obama, the role of a running mate…. Mr. Ryan has given the Romney campaign what it lacked: the ideas and the energy that provide a clear path to the White House.”

That’s largely wishful thinking. But hey, a couple of weeks ago, the Mittster didn’t even have that going for him.

[This post was updated on Tuesday night to include the results of a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.]